elements

So, Muskrat Jamboree last weekend was excellent. I went into the con feeling utterly devoid of physical and emotional energy, and I came out of it feeling refreshed and re-energized and alive. Definitely got many more spoons from being there than it took to go, despite the sleep deprivation and many-people intensity of a con. The one thing I might have done if I'd been more spoon-ful was go to the drag show, but I'm glad I took some down time before our room's Doctor Who party.

The sonic screwdrivers, btw, were excellent. We simplified shihadchick's recipe, just doing vodka + blue curacao + ginger ale, but it was very tasty and had a lovely blue LED-esque color.

Anyway, I can highly recommend ellen_fremedon and cinco as roommates. And sanj, for the one night we got her as a bonus :D. I'm not even going to try name-checking everyone who I met and adored, or squeefully reconnected with. Not gonna try any panel write-ups either. But it was a very good long weekend with people of my tribe, and it made me feel smart and happy and engaged and excited and squeeful and liked and all sorts of other excellent things.

It was also cool that, when mindyfromohio and Ellen and Cinco and I were leaving the hotel, we randomly got to catch about an hour of a collegiate Quidditch game on the Boston Common. They were very well-organized, and the game seemed to be pretty well evolved. I reminisced about how chris created the first non-magically-or-film-special-effects-enabled Quidditch for Nimbus. And I believe he was the or one of the people who modified it for The Witching Hour and future cons, too. Not sure how directly the version we saw draws on that, if at all - that's one of the weird parts of being in such a mainstream fandom. The Snitch was human, with a detachable "tail" to be captured, and the bludgers were soft-looking dodgeball-style bounceable balls. Hula-hoops on stands for the goals, and I think everyone but the Snitch and maybe the Keepers had to keep brooms between their legs all the time too. It was awesome. I'd run across this before, on a couple other weekends last summer, but never been able to stop or even go get close enough to see much at all.

Also I want to recommend the place we had lunch on Sunday, The Dumpling Cafe, on Washington St. near Kneeland in Chinatown. There were these interesting "buns" that were actually soup-filled dumplings. And I really ought to get to Montien (Thai place) more often than once every 2 years on the Saturday of MJ, as is my current developing pattern.